On Tuesday, the court dismissed the discharge pleas of Natarajan and three co-accused. The case was registered and proved by the CBI and the ED. In the CBI case, all four have been convicted and sentenced to two years in jail Their appeals are pending in the high court.TNN | January 11, 2017, 07:14 IST

In the CBI case, all four have been convicted and sentenced to two years in jail Their appeals are pending in the high court.

Now, their bid to get discharged from the ED proceedings has failed. On Monday Natarajan and his wife’s nephew V N Baskaran appeared in court. The ED will begin examining witnesses on February 2, said its special prosecutor Dhandapani.

The case relates to import of a Toyota Lexus from UK on September 6, 1994, for Natarajan’s use in Tamil Nadu. The 3,000cc car, worth a couple of crore of rupees, was shown as used vehicle of 1993 model by substituting the original sale invoice with a photocopy of a fabricated invoice. A customs probe revealed it was a brand new car of 1994 model and that a Rs 1.62 crore loss was caused to exchequer.

A case in metropolitan magistrate court, Egmore and another in the principal special court for CBI cases were filed against the accused. While ED registered a case under the now-repealed Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) 1973, and Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, CBI registered it under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and IPC.

Natarajan, Baskaran, Balakrishnan, a London businessman who sent the car, his son Yogesh and Indian Bank’s Abhiramapuram branch manager Sujaritha Sundararajan were cited as accused.

Since Balakrishnan absconded, the authorities proceeded against the others. In 2010, the CBI court convicted them for conspiracy, forgery, cheating and tax evasion, and sentenced them to two years in jail. They appealed to the high court which stayed the sentence. The appeals are still pending.

The ED case was yet to commence. Against the ED proceedings, Natarjan and the others filed the present case, seeking discharge from proceedings. On December 22, the judge dismissed their discharge petitions.

Prices of most SUVs were cut between Rs 1.1 lakh and Rs 3 lakh following the implementation of GST, which subsumed over a dozen central and state levies like excise duty, service tax, and VAT from July 1.